Desperation Is The English Way
by Eva James
Summary: Draco's life has been flipped upside down and he has no where to go for help. His life is crumbling around him and he isn't helping it much on it's way to recovery. Can Hermione help him? And how will he repay her?


Disclaimer: The characters are not mine, they are that of J.K. Rowling. The plot so far is all mine, but later on there will be some similarities to themes found in several movies. Those movies will be disclosed then. Title is from a Pink Floyd song.  
  
Dedication: Dedicated to everyone who goes to see movies with me every weekend. Thanks for keeping me company and staying through all those credits!!! ^_~  
  
Draco's Problem  
  
Draco Malfoy wasn't someone who asks anybody for help. He thinks that if he has a problem, the best way to get rid of it was to fix it himself. One might call it the Malfoy pride but he liked to refer to it as confidence. That's the way he had always approached life in general, with confidence.  
  
This technique, as he likes to call it, worked for Draco in every situation he had been forced into to date, except today.  
  
He was at breakfast when the news came to him. The Slytherins weren't the kind who got up early enough to take part in breakfast so there weren't many of them. Of those who were present, none cared too much about anyone but themselves to notice others' moods. This is why, when Draco got his letter, no one noticed his face fall in disappointment for the briefest of moments before becoming the blank mask once again.  
  
When Draco's eagle owl, Soren, swooped down at him to drop off his letter, Draco wasn't expecting anything major. He was expecting sweets from his mother, he was expecting a chiding from his father for not beating Potter at Quidditch, but he never expected what came for him that day. As he sat there, opening the letter, a sense of concern overtook him for a slight second.  
  
It wasn't an unusual letter, it had the Malfoy Family Crest on it, it was white, thin, and paper, but for some reason it didn't seem normal. When Draco opened it he quickly skimmed the contents, froze in shock, and slowly reread the letter again. After he made sure he had read it correctly, he put it away and stared at his food. For a moment his thoughts wondered to why he was staring at his food when he wasn't remotely hungry until they were once again filled with what the letter said. Draco then stared at the letter and began turning it over in his hands, as if making sure it was real and that he hadn't imagined it.  
  
Dear Draco, it had said,  
  
As I am quite certain you know that the Malfoy family serves the Dark Lord without any hesitation, I will not dwell on the rules of your upbringing regarding our Lord. With this said, I am also quite certain that you admire my desires of being the Dark Lord's most trusted ally. In order for me to be accepted into his most inner circle I had to do some things that I would never even dream of doing. One of these unfortunate deeds was to kill your mother. Although I am grieving deeply for her at this very moment, I do not want you to dwell on this. Your mother is dead. She will never come back. She has helped me rise in the ranks of our esteemed leader. I do hope that this is taken as an example of true loyalty on your part and I expect nothing less from you when your time comes to serves our Lord. The rest of your term is to be an accomplished one and I wait for your return in June.  
  
Your respected father, Lucius Malfoy  
  
P.S. Do not come home for Christmas holidays as I see no reason now that your mother isn't here to welcome you.  
  
Respected, yeah right, thought Draco. Suddenly he needed to be back in his bed, back at the beginning of the day, back when his mother was still alive and his father wasn't a bastard. Draco needed time. Time to be a kid, time to spend with his mother, time to have a family. If he could have one thing in whole world at this very minute, he would choose time. He wandered back to his dormitory in a haze, not seeing, not hearing, and miraculously dragging his feet to the dungeons.  
  
Getting to his bed, he slumped onto it and lay there, breathing deeply. If he could he would have cried, but being a Malfoy meant you never cry so he didn't. Instead, he shed invisible tears of what he felt inside, all the sadness, the anger, the loathing, the turmoil. He never thought that he'd feel this way, not him. Potter maybe, but never him. Today he learned a lesson in life that he never thought he'd have to. Today he learned what it felt like to be betrayed. Not only was he betrayed, but he was betrayed by the one person he trusted more than anyone, his father. With thoughts of his mother's death still on his mind, Draco let out a dry sob and closed his eyes, welcoming the tiredness that lingered behind his unshed tears.  
  
^*^*^*^*^*  
  
Stepping into the shower, Hermione went over the list of things she needed to do that day. Her schedule was getting so hectic that she couldn't waste one minute thinking about anything but her goals. It was her seventh year already and she still didn't know what to do when she graduated this June. Not that she hadn't thought about it, it's just that there was too much that she wanted to do. She had narrowed down her choices to Mediwitch, journalist for the Daily Prophet, Auror, Professor, Author, and working for the Department of Muggle Correlations at the Ministry of Magic. So far, any of those careers would suite her. She had to pick before the end of this year because each of those jobs requires you to have specific training done in that area of work, which she has to start doing or she'll end up unemployed.  
  
Turning the water to cold for a rinse, Hermione thought back to what her parents had told her at King's Cross. They had specifically told her that she was to choose something that made her happy, no matter what the pay was and if it was a Muggle career or that of a witch. They had told her that they would be proud if she chose to work in the medical field, as they had. Although Hermione respected her parents, she didn't think she'd enjoy working in the Muggle world when she knew the possibilities that awaited her in the Wizarding world. Whatever she chose, she wanted it to be something that made her happy with her life.  
  
As Hermione turned off the water to get out she realized that she couldn't move her feet, as if they had been glued to the bottom of the floor. Trying to move her legs out of their trance she rocked forward sharply and hit her head on the tiled wall. Hermione quickly rubbed at the spot that had been offended by the wall, cursing slightly under her breath. She was still glaring at the wall when her body began to sway involuntarily. Her eyes grew wide as she found she had absolutely no control of her body. As she stood there rocking back and forth, her heartbeat increased and she began to breathe faster.  
  
Just as she was starting to panic, the lack of control ended as suddenly as it had started. Hermione opened her closed eyes and looked around her carefully. The silence was chilling and she could feel shivers running down her spine. She hugged herself and stepped out of the stall, grabbing her towel and preceded to dry her body thoroughly, her thoughts on her future temporarily halted.  
  
Her shivers of that morning followed her all the way down to breakfast where she was joined by Harry and Ron. They instantly noticed her brooding mood. Although they were trying to be comforting and understanding, Hermione knew they would only start to worry if she told them about that morning so she quickly shook them off with a sigh and a reassuring smile.  
  
This is when she noticed that this morning was slightly different from most others she had partaken in since her first year at Hogwarts. Draco Malfoy wasn't at breakfast on this particular day. Not that that was what was strange, many students often skip breakfast, and if not often then at least once during their stay at Hogwarts. What was unusual was that nothing had happened yet. Nothing at all. Everyone knew that breakfast was Malfoy's favourite time to torment Harry, Ron, and Hermione. It was so because that was when he could get them the most pissed off. Practically the entire school knew that the "Trio" weren't morning people, especially Harry. Whenever someone got onto his bad side in the morning, it wasn't a pretty picture. This is why Malfoy specifically chose that particular time to irritate them.  
  
So, naturally, Hermione was a little concerned, as well as relieved, as to why he wasn't there. Turning to her meal, she decided to worry about that later.  
  
Her continued as usual without anything strange happening up until Potions. As she walked down the steps into the dungeons, she suddenly felt a sharp pain spreading through her left arm. She stopped in her tracks and grabbed for her arm, dropping her bag carelessly by her side. The pain was unbearable. It felt like her skin was being split open as if being cut by a particularly jagged knife. Rolling up her sleeve, Hermione noticed a dark red line running up from her wrist to her elbow. Harry and Ron were by her side but she hardly noticed them as her eyes grew wide as she watched the line begin again at another spot on her wrist, coming up to her elbow, along with the pain.  
  
Hermione bit her lip and told her two friends that she was going to go to the hospital wing to check on her arm. Although they had wanted to go with, Hermione convinced them that Professor Snape wouldn't be too happy if three Gryffindors skipped his class at once.  
  
Clutching her arm, she took a deep breath and started for the hospital wing. As she reached the third floor she walked by a door that stood ajar, the sound emitting from it an inhuman one. She stopped in her place and tried to think if it were wise to go poking around empty classrooms. Her curiosity getting the better of her, she took a couple tentative steps forward. Reaching for the door handle, she got knocked off her feet all too suddenly. The door had, at that exact moment, been thrown open from the inside and had pushed her away so that she ended up on her back in front of the entrance.  
  
Whoever had so suddenly decided to assault her fled the room in a hurry. She took notice of the blonde hair and the arrogant strut to the walk of the stranger and defined him as the one and only Draco Malfoy. He too was clutching his left arm but instead of crimson lines, there was actual blood running from recently inflicted wounds. The cuts were exactly the same length and structure as those on Hermione's arm. She got a brief glance of his face as he rounded a corner out of sight. He seemed to be terrified and at the same time extremely pleased, almost as if he had accomplished some amazing feat.  
  
Getting slowly to her feet, Hermione narrowed her eyes and turned her attention to the room that was recently vacated. Peering into the chamber slowly she noticed a table in the center with what looked like a dagger on it. Coming forth from the doorway, she confirmed her suspicions. It was definitely a dagger and it was covered in blood. Draco Malfoy's blood. And it wasn't a little blood, there was so much that it was dripping onto the floor from the pools formed on the table.  
  
Again the pain returned to her arm with an extreme fierceness. She gasped and staggered towards the door. She knew she had to get to the hospital wing and fast. She also figured it would be good to go to a teacher and tell them about Malfoy's self-mutilating. And if that didn't work out then to confront Malfoy herself. No matter who the person was, no one deserved this kind of self-abuse.  
  
^*^*^*^*^* 


End file.
